How to Create a Coupon Popup in WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to create a coupon popup on your WordPress website?

Coupon popups are a great way to convert your website visitors into paying customers. There are several different ways to create and display coupon popups. However, showing the coupon at the right time makes a huge difference in converting abandoning visitors into customers.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how to add a coupon popup to your WordPress or WooCommerce site.

Why Should You Offer Visitors a Coupon?

Often new business owners are concerned that coupons will eat into their profits. However, established business owners know that offering discounts is a powerful way to get visitors to make up their minds instead of sitting on the fence.

Offering coupon codes helps you recover abandoned cart sales, convert visitors into customers, and make more sales.

Most eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce allow you to easily create coupon codes. However, sharing these coupon codes with your customers makes all the difference.

That’s why in this article, we will share two different ways to share coupons with your visitors. These include a coupon exit popup and a coupon spin-a-wheel optin.

Let’s take a look at how to create a coupon popup in WordPress or WooCommerce.

How to Create Your Coupon Popup in WordPress

The best way to create a coupon popup is by using OptinMonster. It is the best WordPress popup plugin and lead generation software in the market.

First, you need to visit the OptinMonster website to create an account. Simply click the ‘Get OptinMonster Now’ button to get started.

You will need at least the Growth plan because it includes Coupon Wheel Campaigns and advanced targeting rules for your popups.

After that, you need to install and activate the OptinMonster plugin on your WordPress site. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

The plugin acts as a connector between your OptinMonster account and your WordPress website.

Upon activating the plugin, you’ll see the OptinMonster setup wizard. Go ahead and click on the ‘Connect Your Existing Account’ button.

A new window will now open where you’ll need to connect your WordPress site with OptinMonster.

Simply click the ‘Connect to WordPress’ button to continue.

You can also connect your WooCommerce store with OptinMonster. Just make sure that you’ve set up an eCommerce store in WordPress.

First, you will need to go to OptinMonster » Settings from your WordPress admin panel.

Afterward, head to the ‘General’ tab and click on the ‘Auto-Generate Keys + Connect WooCommerce’ button.

WooCommerce will now generate keys automatically and connect to your OptinMonster account.

Now, you are all set to create your first coupon popup campaign.

Creating Your Coupon Popup Campaign

To create a campaign, you can go to OptinMonster » Campaigns from your WordPress dashboard and then click the ‘Create Your First Campaign’ button.

On the next screen, OptinMonster will show different campaign types and templates.

First, you’ll need to choose a campaign type. We’re going to use ‘Popup,’ which should be the default selection.

After that, you will be asked to select a template.

OptinMonster has a vast range of templates you can choose from, with lots of different layouts and color schemes. The ‘Coupon’ template is perfect for creating this popup. Although, you can select a different template if you prefer.

You can use the search box to find the Coupon template or scroll down the page.

Next, hover over the template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

The final step before building your coupon popup is to name the campaign. After entering a name, click the ‘Start Building’ button.

Designing your Coupon Popup

Once you’ve clicked ‘Start Building,’ you’ll see the drag-and-drop campaign builder.

You can use it to add different blocks to your template and change the text, colors, and design of the coupon in whatever way you like.

You can also click on any element of the design to change it further. Here, we’ve edited the text and made it a different color.

As soon as you make your changes, you’ll see real-time updates in the coupon popup template.

You might want to experiment with different fonts and colors to make your text stands out in the popup or matches your brand.

Outside of the text and elements within the popup, you can also change the background color, add an image to your coupon, set the border color, change the border style, and more.

Once you’re done with the changes, please ensure you store your campaign by clicking the green ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen.

Decide How to Deliver Your Coupon Code

Now that you’ve set up your coupon popup, you need to decide how you’ll actually deliver the coupon code to your visitor.

There are several ways to do this in OptinMonster, but the best way is to deliver the coupon code straight away through OptinMonster’s Success view and send it by email newsletter.

That way, if the visitor isn’t ready to buy immediately, they’ve got the coupon code in their email inbox for easy reference later.

By default, your coupon popup is already designed to use ‘the Success view’ as soon as the button is clicked. To check, you can click on the button and then see the ‘Go to View’ option on the left-hand side of your screen.

If you want a different button action, you can change that here. For your first coupon, though, we recommend sticking with the default.

Integrating OptinMonster With Your Email List

To send your coupon code out by email automatically and for the visitor to be added to your email list, you’ll need to integrate OptinMonster with an email marketing service.

Constant Contact is a great service to use with OptinMonster, and WPBeginner readers can get 20% off their first 3 months by using this coupon.

However, if you use a different email service, OptinMonster integrates with pretty much every major provider.

Simply go to the ‘Integration’ tab and click the ‘+ Add New Integration’ button to add your email marketing service.

Once you’ve done that, you can set up an automated email to go out whenever someone signs up for the email list through your coupon popup.

Bonus Tip: Edit the Success View Template

You can view and change the ‘Success View’ template by going back to the Design tab of your campaign and clicking the ‘Sucess’ option at the bottom of the screen.

The default looks like this, but you can edit it in any way you want, just like you edited your coupon popup.

Change Your Coupon Popup’s Display Rules

By default, your coupon popup will appear to visitors after they’ve been on any page of your site for 5 seconds.

If you want to change this, go to the ‘Display Rules’ tab.

You can set whatever display rules you like, but a great one to try out is Exit-Intent®.

This special OptinMonster technology can tell when a visitor is about to leave your site and show them your coupon popup at just the right moment.

You can add exit intent by selecting the ‘exit detected’ from the dropdown menu and choosing which devices to show the campaign on. By default, it will be set to display on all devices.

There is also an option to control the sensitivity of exit intent.

After that, scroll down and choose the pages where you’d like to show your campaign.

For example, you can use the default setting of ‘current URL path’ and select the ‘is any page’ option. This way, your campaign will appear on your entire website.

After adding the display rules, you can click the ‘Next Step’ button.

OptinMonster also offers options to play a sound effect and show animation when the coupon popup appears.

Now, you can click the ‘Next Step’ button.

On the next screen, you will see a summary of your display rules. Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.

Once you’re happy with your coupon popup, you can go to the ‘Publish’ tab at the top.

After that, simply make sure that ‘Publish’ is checked under the ‘Publish Status’ section.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button at the top and close the campaign builder.

You can now visit your website to see the coupon popup in action.

Creating a Spin-to-Win Coupon Wheel

A spin-to-win coupon wheel is a great way to make your coupons more interesting and fun for your site’s visitors. It’s like a mini-game that visitors can play to win a discount or another bonus.

Your spin-to-win options could include things like 10% off, 20% off, free shipping, a free trial, or whatever you want to offer.

OptinMonster offers a ‘Gamified’ campaign type that lets you create spin-the-wheel popups.

After that, scroll down and select one of the Wheel templates.

The plugin has different spin-to-win templates. Simply hover over a template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

Next, go ahead and edit any aspect of your coupon wheel.

To edit the options on the coupon wheel itself, you’ll need to click on the ‘Customize Wheel Sections’ button on the left-hand side.

You can then type in any text as the Label for each option and add in the coupon code for each winning option.

Note that the ‘Win Chance’ is automatically determined. If you change the toggle on one or more of the ‘Can Win’ options, OpinMonster will recalculate the winning chances

If you need more help creating your coupon wheel and adding it to your site, check out our post on how to add spin-to-win optins in WordPress and WooCommerce, which goes through the process in more detail.

You can then visit your website to see the spin-to-win coupon popup in action.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a coupon popup in WordPress. You might also want to look at our pick of the best WooCommerce plugins or our guide on how to add push notifications to your WordPress site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Coupon Popup in WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 06, 2022 at 11:46PM

How to Check and Update to the Latest WordPress Version

Are you wondering if your website is using the latest version of WordPress?

With each new release, WordPress developers fix bugs, add new features, improve performance, and stay up to date with new industry standards. If you don’t keep your website up to date, then you risk your website security and miss out on new features.

In this article, we’ll show you how to check and update to the latest WordPress version.

Here are the topics we’ll cover in this article. Use the links below to jump to the section you are most interested in.

• Why You Should Always Use the Latest Version of WordPress
• How to Easily Check Your WordPress Version
• How to Check for WordPress Updates
• How to Safely Update to the Latest Version of WordPress
• How to Enable Automatic WordPress Updates
• How to Test a WordPress Update on a Staging Site
• How to Install the Latest WordPress Nightly Builds

Why You Should Always Use the Latest Version of WordPress

The most important reason to use the latest version of WordPress is improved security of your website. Since more than 43% of all websites use WordPress, it’s a common target for hackers, malicious code distributors, and data thieves.

Every time a security vulnerability is reported, the core WordPress team works diligently to release an update that fixes the issue. That makes the latest version of WordPress the most secure version.

New WordPress releases also include useful new features as well as bug fixes to old features.

Often plugin and theme developers coordinate their updates with major WordPress releases. This lets them take advantage of newly available features and enhancements. And that often means the latest version of WordPress is the most compatible.

Learn more in our guide on why you should always use the latest version of WordPress.

How to Easily Check Your WordPress Version

The first thing you need to do is login to the WordPress admin area and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Look for the phrase, ‘Thanks for creating with WordPress.’ Next to that, you will see the WordPress version number.

On the Dashboard » Home screen, you can also find your WordPress version number in the ‘At a Glance’ admin widget. In the screenshot above, we are using WordPress version 6.0.2.

Sometimes you will want to know the WordPress version of a website when you don’t have admin access. Luckily, there are other ways to check the version they are using, and you can learn about them in our guide on how to easily check which WordPress version you are using.

How to Check for WordPress Updates

You can see if a new version of WordPress is available by visiting the Dashboard » Updates page of your WordPress admin area.

If your WordPress version is up to date, then you will see a message that says you have the current version. In the screenshot below, that is version 6.0.2.

On this page, you’ll also see the timestamp when your WordPress site last checked for updates.

WordPress automatically checks for updates on a regular basis. However, you can also click the ‘Check again’ link to manually check for updates.

When a latest version of WordPress is available, you will see the message, ‘An updated version of WordPress is available.’

Under this message, you’ll find an ‘Update Now’ button. The next section will show you how to install a WordPress update.

How to Safely Update to the Latest Version of WordPress

Before you update anything, it’s important to perform a full backup of your WordPress website. You can learn the best way to do this in our guide on how to back up and restore your WordPress site.

Once you’ve done that, you can return to the Dashboard » Updates page and then click the ‘Update Now’ button you can see in the screenshot above.

WordPress will automatically put your site into maintenance mode, then fetch the latest version of the software and install it for you. You will see the update progress on your screen.

Advanced users can also update WordPress manually. You can learn how in our guide on how to safely update WordPress.

Once the WordPress update has been installed, you should visit your website to make sure everything looks right and is working.

If there are any issues, then you will need to do some troubleshooting. You might like to take a look at our list of common WordPress errors and our WordPress troubleshooting guide.

If you don’t find a way to fix the issues, then you can restore your website from the backup you created.

How to Enable Automatic WordPress Updates

When you visit the Dashboard » Updates page in your WordPress admin area, you will see the message, ‘This site is automatically kept up to date with maintenance and security releases of WordPress only.’

Because it’s best to install security updates immediately to keep your website safe, WordPress does this automatically for you. That means you can be confident your site will stay secure, even if you’re busy or away from home.

If you would like all WordPress updates to be handled the same way, then simply click the link labeled ‘Enable automatic updates for all new versions of WordPress.’

There are a few more ways to enable automatic WordPress updates, and you can learn about them in our guide on how to enable automatic updates in WordPress for major versions.

Automatic WordPress updates are convenient, but they can also lead to problems. For example, it’s possible that an update could break your site. If WordPress is updated automatically, then you may not be around to fix it, or even notice there is a problem.

That’s why it’s good to keep a little more control over your updates. You can learn how in our guide on how to better manage automatic WordPress updates.

If you decide to turn off automatic updates in the future, then simply return to the Dashboard » Updates page and click the link that says ‘Switch to automatic updates for maintenance and security releases only.’

Now major WordPress releases will not be installed automatically, only security updates which are much less likely to have conflicts that break your site.

You might like to see our guide on how to disable automatic updates in WordPress to learn additional methods. That article will even show to turn off automatic security updates, although that’s not something we generally recommend.

How to Test a WordPress Update on a Staging Site

If you’re worried about an update breaking your site, then you can test whether there are problems before installing it on your live website. You can do this with a staging site.

A staging site is a clone of your live website and should be installed on the same web hosting server. This means that if the WordPress update works correctly on the staging site, then you can be confident it will cause no problems on the live site.

Some of the best WordPress hosting companies offer 1-click staging websites. If your website is hosted with one of them, then you can easily create a staging site without any hassle.

If your hosting provider doesn’t offer this service, then you can easily create a staging site yourself. You can do so manually or use a plugin like WP Stagecoach.

We show you how to install and use a staging site in our step-by-step guide on how to easily create a staging site for WordPress.

How to Install the Latest WordPress Nightly Builds

The most up-to-date WordPress updates are called nightly builds. They should never be installed on a live website because they are still being tested for bugs.

Instead, nightly builds should be installed on a staging site or locally on your Windows or Mac computer. You can do this using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin which will automatically update your WordPress install to the latest nightly builds.

Who should install WordPress nightly builds?

Developers use nightly builds to make sure their plugins and themes will work with future versions of WordPress before they are released. If there is a problem, then they can fix their own code, or let the WordPress core developers know about any bugs they discover.

It’s also a good way to contribute to the WordPress project. Normal users without programming skills can test the nightly build and report any bugs they find. Those with programming skills can even submit code patches that fix those bugs.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to check and update the latest WordPress version. You may also want to learn how to speed up your WordPress website, or check out our list of must-have WordPress plugins to grow your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Check and Update to the Latest WordPress Version first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 06, 2022 at 03:31PM

What Happens When You Switch Your WordPress Theme?

Do you want to know what happens when you switch WordPress themes?

With so many great WordPress themes available, it can be tempting to switch to a new theme. However, there are a few things to keep in mind before you switch. 

In this article, we’ll answer what happens when you switch your WordPress theme, so you know what to expect. 

What Happens if You Change Themes in WordPress?

When you’re considering changing your the theme on your WordPress site, it can be hard to know what features and functions your theme is responsible for.

That’s because some WordPress themes are simple and minimalist, and don’t include many features beyond a basic design. Other WordPress themes are multipurpose, and include many different templates, customization options, and features to help you customize your website.

Depending on the features that come with your theme, you may be afraid that changing it would cause you to lose content or even delete everything on your site.

Luckily, that’s not the case. You won’t lose all your site content if you switch themes.

Still, you might lose more than you think. That’s why it’s important to understand what happens when you switch themes, and how to change WordPress themes without losing content.

With that said, let’s walk you through what will happen when you switch your WordPress theme.

Theme Menus Will Change with New WordPress Theme

WordPress has a built in navigation menu system. Each WordPress theme will have a different way of displaying and using these menus. 

That’s why there will be new menu locations when you switch your WordPress theme. 

If you’ve previously assigned a menu to a certain theme location, then it will need to be reassigned after your theme changes.

To change your menu locations, simply go to Appearance » Menus and select your menu from the drop down.

Then, check the box for the location where you want the menu to display.

You can select multiple locations for a single menu. 

For more details, see our beginner’s guide on how to add a navigation menu in WordPress.

WordPress Widget Settings Will be Different

Widgets let you add different elements to your WordPress theme sidebars, footers, and other widget-ready areas.

When you change your WordPress themes, these widget areas will be replaced, and your active widgets will be deactivated.

You can add these back to your site by going to Appearance » Widgets and going to the ‘Inactive Widgets’ section.

For more details, see our guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.

If the theme you’re using comes with its own widgets, then these will be unavailable when you switch themes. 

WordPress Theme Settings Will Disappear

All WordPress themes have different customization options. Some themes will simply rely on the WordPress theme customizer, but others will be controlled with a theme options panel.

A theme options panel can control a lot of aspects of your site like:

• Website logo
• Favicon image
• Header and footers
• Background image
• Font choice
• And more

Here’s an example of the Astra theme options panel.

It can also include any WordPress analytics, advertising, and other tracking codes you’ve added directly to the options panel. 

All of these settings done through your theme’s options panel will be gone.

If you made a list of WordPress theme changes before switching themes, then you can try to set up the same settings with your new theme. However, your new theme may have a different set of features.

In most cases, losing design settings shouldn’t impact your website speed and performance or search engine rankings.

However, if your theme bundles analytics or SEO settings in the theme options panel, then you’ll need to use a plugin to install Google Analytics and optimize your WordPress SEO.

For analytics, we recommend using MonsterInsights, the best analytics plugin for WordPress. By using a plugin instead of your theme settings, you won’t lose any data when you switch themes.

For search engine optimization, we recommend using AIOSEO since it’s the best WordPress SEO plugin in the market used by over 3 million websites.

It lets you easily optimize your website for the search engines without learning any complex technical skills.

For more details, see our guide on how to setup All in One SEO for WordPress correctly.

Code Snippets in functions.php Won’t Work

Many website owners customize the functionality of their themes by adding code to WordPress.

If you’ve added code directly to your functions.php file or other theme files, then this code won’t be used when you switch themes.

Make sure you take note of any code snippets you’ve added to these theme files, so you can add them to your new theme.

A better way to add snippets to your site is by using a code snippets plugin like WPCode.

See our guide on pasting snippets from the web into WordPress for step-by-step instructions.

Theme-Specific Post Types and Taxonomies Will Disappear

Beyond changing the design of your website, some WordPress themes also come with their own custom post types and taxonomies.

This is usually done to display content like portfolios, books, testimonials, and more. 

If your theme uses custom post types and taxonomies, then these will become inaccessible when you change themes.

They’ll still be stored in the WordPress database, but you’ll need to do additional customization to display them with your new theme.

That’s why we recommend using a WordPress plugin to add those features instead of a theme. That way, you can continue to use them easily when you switch WordPress themes.

To find a plugin for the feature you need, you can see our expert pick of the best WordPress plugins, or simply search Google and add “WPBeginner” to your search to find our tried and tested recommendations.

WordPress Theme Specific Sliders Will Disappear

A lot of WordPress themes have built-in slider settings for adding a full-screen home page slider. When you switch themes, these sliders will disappear. 

If you want to add sliders anywhere on your website, we recommend using a WordPress slider plugin. For more details, take a look at our comparison of the best WordPress slider plugins.

WordPress Theme Specific Shortcodes Will Disappear

Shortcodes give you a way to add new functionality to your posts, pages, and widget areas.

Many popular WordPress themes comes with their own shortcodes to add functionality like:

• Buttons
• Image galleries
• Sliders
• Column layouts
• And more

When you switch WordPress themes, these shortcodes will no longer work. As a result, the shortcode will simply appear as text inside your content areas. 

If you want to future proof theme shortcodes, then you can add the code using a site-specific plugin instead. This lets you add customizations with a plugin that won’t change, even when you switch themes. 

For more details, see our guide on how to create a site-specific WordPress plugin.

What Stays the Same When Switching WordPress Themes?

Some parts of your WordPress blog will stay the same when you switch WordPress themes. For example, your WordPress posts and pages will be unaffected by the theme switch.

However, depending on how your old theme displayed posts, images, attachments, and pages, they might look slightly different.

Your media library will also remain the same. However, your WordPress theme might have different image sizes for featured images and thumbnails.

If this is the case, then you may need to regenerate thumbnails to display the proper image size. 

All of your general WordPress settings like permalinks, display settings, and more will remain the same.

Same with other WordPress plugins you’ve installed, although they may function differently with your new theme. 

How to Prepare to Switch WordPress Themes?

Before you switch WordPress themes, there are a few things you should do to make sure it’s a smooth and error free experience. 

First, it’s very important you create a complete website backup using a WordPress backup plugin. This saves a copy of your posts, pages, plugins, media, and databases.

For more details, see our guide on how to backup your WordPress site with UpdraftPlus.

Once your site is backed up, you should spend time reviewing your current theme. You can make note of any customizations you’ve made like custom CSS, widgets, and more that can be added to your new theme.

For more details, see our checklist of things you must do before changing WordPress themes.

Before activating your new WordPress theme, you can use the built-in preview feature to see how it will look. WordPress lets you install and preview themes in real-time without activating them on the front end

Simply go to Appearance » Themes and then hover over the theme and click the ‘Live Preview’ button to see what it will look like.

When previewing your theme, take note of any visual changes that will take effect. 

You can browse your website’s home page, posts, other pages, archives, and more with the menu on the left.

After that, you can determine if you can adjust the new theme settings and layout to match the features of your old site worth keeping.

For more details, check out our guide on how to properly change a WordPress theme. 

We hope this article helped you learn what will change when you switch WordPress themes. You may also want to see our guide on how to choose the best web design software and our picks of the best business phone services for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post What Happens When You Switch Your WordPress Theme? first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 05, 2022 at 11:30PM

How to Speed up WooCommerce Performance (12 Tips)

Do you want to speed up WooCommerce performance for your online store?

A faster loading WooCommerce store improves user experience and helps you boost sales and conversions.

In this article, we’ll show you how to speed up WooCommerce performance with easy and practical tips.

Why Is WooCommerce Speed Important?

WooCommerce speed is important because it helps improve user experience on your online store.

Recent research has found that a 1-second drop in page speed causes a 7% loss in conversions and a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.

More than 73% of users switch to a competitor if they come across a slower website. Basically, a slow WooCommerce store causes lower conversions and decreased sales.

It also affects your WooCommerce SEO rankings. Page speed is one of the crucial factors that search engines like Google use to rank websites.

Optimizing WooCommerce for speed and performance can help you recover these losses and improve your overall conversions, sales, and customer satisfaction score.

That being said, let’s look at how to speed up WooCommerce with the following tips.

• Upgrade Your WooCommerce Hosting
• Set up Caching for Your WooCommerce Store
• Keep WooCommerce Updated
• Optimize Product Images in WooCommerce
• Choose a Faster Loading WooCommerce Theme
• 6. Replace Poorly Coded Plugins & Extensions
• Use The Latest PHP Version
• Turn on a DNS Level Firewall
• Use an SMTP Service to Send WooCommerce Emails
• Upgrade Conversion Optimization Tools
• Optimize WooCommerce Database
• Optimize JavaScript and CSS Files

1. Upgrade Your WooCommerce Hosting

Choosing the right hosting provider is the first step in improving WooCommerce speed.

Hosting is where all your WooCommerce files are stored. If your hosting provider doesn’t have a good platform, then it degrades your customers’ WooCommerce performance.

Without good WooCommerce hosting, all other tips for improving speed and performance will not work.

If you are just getting started, then we recommend using SiteGround. They are a WooCommerce-recommended hosting provider and one of the top companies in the hosting market.

They are offering WPBeginner users a generous discount when you use our SiteGround coupon, and the hosting comes with powerful features for eCommerce such as Ultrafast PHP, Ecommerce caching, and more.

For those who are looking for alternative options, we recommend using WP Engine or Hostinger.

Need help moving your WooCommerce store?

Follow our step-by-step tutorial on how to move WordPress to a new host for detailed instructions.

2. Set up Caching for Your WooCommerce Store

WooCommerce runs on top of WordPress. It automatically generates pages when a user visits your website.

This means more people visiting your website will keep your hosting server busier for longer.

Caching helps you solve this issue.

Instead of generating pages on the fly, it serves your users a static copy it has stored.

This frees up your website server resources, making it faster and more responsive.

The best way to add caching to your WooCommerce store is by using WP Rocket. It is the best WooCommerce caching plugin on the market that is incredibly powerful yet totally beginner friendly.

Simply install and activate WP Rocket plugin.

Once installed, it will automatically generate cache and apply WooCommerce-related settings.

For more details, check out our tutorial on how to set up WP Rocket in WordPress.

3. Keep WooCommerce Updated

WooCommerce releases new versions frequently. These new versions not only fix bugs and introduce new features, but they also improve performance.

Make sure that your WooCommerce version is always up to date.

However, WooCommerce relies on WordPress and the whole ecosystem of your theme and plugins. Updating WooCommerce alone doesn’t mean that you are using the latest software for your online store.

You’ll also need to ensure that you are using the latest version of WordPress and have installed all plugins and theme updates.

It is always necessary to ensure that you have made a complete backup of your WooCommerce store before installing updates in the correct order.

4. Optimize Product Images in WooCommerce

For a WooCommerce store, you need product images to grow your business. However, images take longer to load and impact your page speed.

By optimizing your product images, you can reduce their filesize significantly without losing quality. This makes all your store pages, product categories, and product pages load faster.

Now, there are several ways to optimize images. The most reliable one is to optimize images before uploading them to your WooCommerce product.

Most image editing software like Adobe Photoshop allow you to export images for the web.

During the export dialog, you can choose an image file format (JPG, PNG, GIF) that gives you the smallest filesize.

Then you can reduce quality, colors, and other options to further decrease filesize.

Using your image editing tool to reduce filesize is the most efficient way to improve images on your WooCommerce store.

However, you can also use an image compression plugin to automatically adjust image filesize. This allows you to optimize product images that you have already uploaded to your website.

For more details, see our tutorial on optimizing images for the web.

5. Choose a Faster Loading WooCommerce Theme

When choosing themes for their WooCommerce stores, many beginners end up choosing the fanciest theme with a ton of bells and whistles.

We understand the reason behind that. Beginners feel that they should get a theme that has all the features they want to see in their store.

That’s not how themes are supposed to work.

WordPress themes are meant to control only the appearance of your website and WooCommerce store, not add features.

When choosing a theme, you should look for options like layout choices, color schemes, WooCommerce support, etc. For functionality, you should use plugins and extensions.

Choosing a theme with tons of plugin-like features can slow down your website. The theme would load a lot of extra code you are probably not even using.

To learn more, see our article on choosing the perfect theme for your website.

If you need quick theme recommendations, then we recommend Astra or simply use SeedProd to create a custom WooCommerce theme without any code (drag & drop builder).

Need more ideas? Check out our expert pick of the best WooCommerce themes to find a faster theme for your online store.

6. Replace Poorly Coded Plugins & Extensions

The best part about using WooCommerce is that you can access thousands of extensions and WordPress plugins.

As long as they are well-coded, you can install as many plugins as you need, and it won’t cause any noticeable performance impact.

However, some poorly coded WordPress plugins can slow down your website. These plugins typically run database-intensive queries or load unnecessary JavaScript and CSS.

You can use plugins like Query Monitor to see the number of queries run on each page load.

Query Monitor allows you to see the following activity:

• Database queries triggered by a page on your WooCommerce store
• HTTP requests made by scripts in your themes or plugins
• Hooks and actions triggered on a page
• Language, user role checks, and template files used to display the page
• Your hosting environment like PHP and MySQL versions, memory limits, and more.

For more details and step by step instructions, see our tutorial on how to add query monitor in WordPress.

If this doesn’t help, then you can simply test your website after deactivating all plugins.

If deactivating plugins suddenly improves WooCommerce performance, then you can activate them one by one to figure out which one is the culprit.

You can then reach out to that plugin’s support and let them know about the issue. Meanwhile, you can replace the plugin with an alternate option.

For essential features, take a look at our expert pick of the best WooCommerce plugins that every online store should install.

7. Use The Latest PHP Version

WooCommerce and WordPress are both written using PHP as the main programming language.

PHP is an open source programming language just like WordPress. It is regularly maintained by a very active community of developers who frequently release new versions.

For each new release, they spend a large amount of time and resources on improving PHP performance by making it faster.

However, WordPress hosting companies are often not as quick to switch to the latest PHP version. They often run several versions behind to ensure software compatibility.

You can see which PHP version is used by your website by visiting  Tools » Site Health page and switching to the Info tab.

At the time of writing this article, the latest PHP version is 8.0.22.

All top WordPress hosting providers easy tools to select which PHP version you want to use on your website.

For instance, on Bluehost, you can go to your hosting control panel and click on the Advanced tab in the left column.

Then, you need to click on the MultiPHP Manager app to choose your PHP version.

For more information on this topic, you may want to see our article on updating PHP version for your WordPress website.

8. Turn on a DNS Level Firewall

A DNS-level firewall protects your WooCommerce store against malicious activity. It blocks suspicious requests to your website even before they reach your server.

Hacking attempts, suspicious crawlers, and DDoS attacks can eat up your hosting resources and make your website slow.

A DNS firewall blocks them, which frees up your server resources to do other things.

We recommend using Sucuri. It is the best WordPress security plugin and website firewall.

It also comes with a super-fast CDN to serve your static content.

A CDN is a content delivery network that allows you to serve non-dynamic parts of your website through a global network of servers.

These networks are usually strategically located at different geographic points around the globe. This means your users will load the static files from a server closer to their own location.

For more details, see our guide on why do you need a CDN for your WordPress website.

9. Use an SMTP Service to Send WooCommerce Emails

Your WooCommerce store sends email notifications for account management, order confirmation, and administrative notices.

By default, WordPress uses the PHP mail() function to send emails. This function can be misused by spammers and many hosting companies deliberately limit or block it.

That’s why you need to use an SMTP server to send your WooCommerce emails.

SMTP is the standard protocol for sending emails.

Now your hosting company may provide free business email address that you can use to send emails via SMTP.

However, hosting companies typically host the mail server on the same computer as their web hosting server.

This means sending many emails at once can impact your website. Even when the email is processed, it may end up in spam.

To fix this problem, you’ll need to use an SMTP service provider.

We recommend using SendLayer, which is the best SMTP service provider on the market. They also have a free trial where you can send up to 200 emails.

Alternatives: SMTP.com and Sendinblue

Once you have signed up, you can use WP Mail SMTP to start sending emails via your SMTP service provider.

Having issues with WooCommerce emails? See this tutorial to fix WooCommerce not sending emails issue.

10. Upgrade Conversion Optimization Tools

Conversion optimization is the combination of techniques store owners use to nudge website visitors into making a purchase or signing up.

To do that, they use a bunch of tools to display popups, promote coupons, display targeted offers, and more.

The problem is that some of these tools are often not optimized for speed. They may load too many unnecessary files, prevent page rendering, not display correctly on mobile devices, and basically destroy user experience on your store.

We recommend using conversion optimization software that are fast, optimized for user experience, and work beautifully on mobile devices.

This is where OptinMonster comes in. It is the industry leader among conversion optimization software and allows you to convert website visitors into customers.

It comes with smart popups, slide in widgets, header and footer tools, countdown timers, and other tools to grow your business.

It also includes powerful targeting options that allow you to display your campaigns at the right time to the right users.

Most importantly, your OptinMonster campaigns are highly optimized for speed, performance, and user experience across all screen sizes.

For more tools and tips see our expert tips on recovering abandoned carts in WooCommerce.

11. Optimize WooCommerce Database

WooCommerce uses the same database as your WordPress installation. They both save a lot of data that becomes useless after a while. For instance, old revisions, transients, spam comments, and more will stay in your database for a long time.

Now, this means that your WordPress backup plugin will take longer to prepare a backup. It will also take more time if you have to download or upload it.

Luckily, there are excellent tools to optimize your WordPress database.

If you are using WP Rocket, then you can go to Settings » WP Rocket page and switch to the Database tab.

From here you can clean up your WordPress database. Simply select the unnecessary items you want to remove and click on the Save Changes and Optimize button.

Alternately, you can use WP-Optimize plugin. Simply install and activate the plugin and go to the plugin’s settings page by clicking on WP-Optimize in the admin sidebar.

Select the items you want to delete or optimize and then click on the ‘Run all selected optimizations’ button.

For more details, see our tutorial on how to optimize your WordPress database.

12. Optimize JavaScript and CSS Files

JavaScript and CSS files send individual HTTP requests and increase the time it takes for a page to load. Some of these files may block rendering which means the page will not be displayed until the browser has downloaded those files.

There are multiple ways you can optimize JavaScript and CSS file delivery. We have talked about using CDN and caching already.

More advanced users can minify or combine those files.

Minification removes white spaces from JavaScript and CSS files which reduces their download size.

Combining all your JavaScript and CSS files allows you to serve users all the JavaScript and CSS with one file.

You can do that using the WP Rocket plugin. Simply go to the File Optimization tab and turn on minify and combine options for CSS and JavaScript.

For alternate methods and more details, you may want to check out our tutorial on how to minify CSS and JavaScript in WordPress.

Note: Minifying and combining these files may result in unexpected issues n your website. If it causes issues, then you can simply turn it off.

We hope this article helped you improve WooCommerce speed and boost performance for your online store. You may also want to see our guide on how to track WooCommerce conversions or see these tips for improving your organic click rates in WooCommerce.

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The post How to Speed up WooCommerce Performance (12 Tips) first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 05, 2022 at 03:34PM